This morning we had a shopping tour scheduled for the moms, but Aliya and I didn’t feel great so we stayed at the riad with Andi and relaxed.  Gia and Lana took off with Ahmed (our guide from yesterday) for a couple of hours of shopping, while the dads and kids went to Djemaa el Fna to buy a few chatchkes and take a caleche (carriage) ride.  I’ll have to have some guest bloggers cover those excursions for you.

We settled up with the riad, and set out for lunch at Kui-Zin, which I thought was very good.  Getting around in the medina is not easy.  Whenever anyone asks how long it will take to get somewhere, I always say “10-15 minutes.”  I’m usually wrong, and I think the group is starting to catch on.  After lunch we went to the assigned street corner to meet Dani, loaded up, and hit the road.

We had promised the kids a camel ride.  There are lots of camel ride establishments in the Palmeraie outside of Marrakech, so we stopped at the first one we saw.  In hindsight, we should have driven past all of them, yelling “bsh’haal?!?!” (how much?) out the window, but we didn’t think of it and Ben just haggled a bit to get the price down.  It ended up being about $15/kid which is kind of pricey for Morocco.

There was an extra camel so we urged Andi to climb aboard.  I almost peed my pants watching them load everyone on and head out for the ride.  I will let the photos speak for themselves…

Adlani jumped right on like he rides a camel to school every day:

Camels stand up in several stages…

Amine thought he was about to be eaten (photo by Gia):

Larry in Camel Pose (photo by Gia)…

We’re in Mohammedia tomorrow, waiting for Elizabeth, Chloe, and Hannah to arrive!  Then it’s off to Fez!

There’s no way for me to describe everything we did today in detail, so here are some photos to give you an idea.  If you have questions about anything just leave a comment and I will elaborate.

The kids decorated the breakfast room for my birthday!

Our guides for the tour of Marrakech were Ahmed and Abdul.  Ahmed was clearly a pro and spoke perfect English – he told me that he learned English in Marrakech, with British and American teachers.  Abdul’s job was to make sure nobody got lost or flattened crossing the street.  When we reached the first crosswalk, Ahmed said, “We have now reached the most dangerous part of the tour – crossing the street.”  He wasn’t kidding.

It was a little crazy walking through the tight streets with cars, scooters, motorcycles, and other modes of transport whizzing by, but nobody got run over (knock on wood).

At the Koutoubia Mosque, Ahmed explained the significance of the 3 balls on top.  There are several theories, but one is that the largest ball represents Judaism, the medium ball represents Christianity, and the smallest ball represents Islam (in order of when the religion was established).  Larry, Marc, and Ben created a visual representation of the 3 balls of religion.

Ahmed was very interesting but the kids weren’t really into the historical parts.

These are traditional water sellers…I don’t think they really sell water any more.  They just earn money by taking photos with tourists.

The Bahia Palace is BEAUTIFUL.  Ben and I have been here before – it was one of the locations featured in my Doors of Morocco photo essay in Doors & Hardware magazine.

If I wasn’t into doors, I’d be into ceilings – so amazing.

There were 3 niches in the courtyard for meetings.  One for Muslims, one for Jews, and one for Christians.  That way, when someone arrived for a meeting, the big guy knew a bit about their perspective depending on which niche they were seated in.  This is the one for Christians.

And this is the one for Jews…the Star of David is evident in the decoration.

We mostly hopped from one shady spot to another, and surprisingly it was not super-hot.

For lunch, Ahmed dropped us off at Terrace des Epices – a beautiful and delicious rooftop restaurant.  We would never have known it was there.  The menu is on the big blackboards, in English and French.

My couscous…

Ben and Gia ordered this special beef dish that is buried in the fire to cook for 4 hours.

After lunch we went back to the riad and chillaxed for a few hours until it was time to venture out again.  Dani drove us in the Party Bus.  The Marrakech medina is surrounded by walls, and has 12 doors into the city which used to be closed at 7 p.m. to keep out invaders.  This is the one closest to our restaurant for dinner (Café Clock), which was in the Kasbah.

There are huge stork nests on top of the walls.

On the roof at Café Clock:

The boys ordered these amazing pancakes:

Norah and Andi making camel faces…

A birthday cake for me, arranged by the lady (Helen Ranger from Fez Riads) who helped me book the riads and a few other details for the trip.  There was drumming and singing by the staff.  My wish was that nobody would get diarrhea.

After dinner we walked the treacherous route to Djemaa el Fna.  I agreed with Ben that it was a must-see, but it was a little hairy.  Adlani was SO TIRED, I heard him say to himself, “I’m going to die here.  This is how I’m going to die.”  It doesn’t look so bad from this photo…

To really see what it’s like you have to look from above, so Ben marched all 16 of us up the 98 flights of stairs to get to the rooftop.

And we were finally able to get wine when the stores reopened after the holiday.  It made us very happy.

We lost an hour of sleep when the clocks jumped forward.  The end.

When you travel in Morocco (or in dozens of other countries outside of the US) you have to manage your expectations.  As Americans, we’re used to doing what we want, when we want to.  We can get virtually anything we want or need, at any time.  We drive to our destination in air-conditioned comfort, pull up in front of the hotel on schedule, unload, check in, and arrive in our rooms in minutes.  The GPS tells us how to get there and how long it will take – adjusting for traffic.  We know for sure that we will have internet access, and we can get a glass of wine any time our hearts desire one.

None of this is guaranteed in Morocco.  A lot depends on the will of God.  Insha’Allah, the Party Bus will pick us up around 10 a.m.  The air conditioning combined with strategic window ventilation will probably keep us from melting into a puddle in the 100-degree heat.  After asking directions several times, we hope that someone will come and guide us through the medina, and nobody will get run over by a motor vehicle in the narrow passageways.

It’s actually sort of freeing if you can adapt to this way of life.  This is not my first rodeo, so it didn’t take me long to fall in line.  The Party Bus DID show up around 10 today, and although it was a little toasty, we all survived the 3-hour ride on the highway to Marrakech.  We stopped at Marjane (the supermarket – where a highlight was seeing the birds eating from the bulk pasta bin) in Marrakech to get some snacks and drinks, and found the assigned street corner semi-close to the riad by a little after 2 p.m.  We called Marrakech Riads, the company that manages several riads here, and they sent someone to meet us with a cart.  He guided us through the maze to the riad (guesthouse), where we found an oasis of quiet, beautiful guest rooms – with AIR CONDITIONING.

We were seated in the lounge and served mint tea while we filled out the “police forms”, and then we were shown to our rooms.  They’re simple but beautiful, and throughout the hotel there are amazing details and cozy nooks.  I will post more photos tomorrow, but here are some from today, in random order because Norah wants to go to bed and I can only access the cell network from the roof…

Larry and Marc’s office:

Dinner is served!

The roof is BEAUTIFUL, and so cool and breezy right now (10:30 p.m.):

I told the kids that the pool was super-small because I didn’t want them to be disappointed.  Adlani thought this was it:

The door to Gia and Marc’s room:

The plunge pool:

Last night we were schooled in the art of making mint tea, which is served daily (multiple times) in Morocco.  Ben’s sister Amina is the Tea-Master, and demonstrated for us.  She rinsed the teapot, and added two scoops of green tea (we use Gunpowder Tea from Chinatown in Boston).  Then she added a little hot water and poured it out a few times – most of the tea stayed in the bottom of the pot.  She stuck in a giant handful of mint, followed by 5 huge sugar cubes, then filled the pot with hot water and heated it to a boil again.  She poured out several glasses of tea and dumped them back in the pot to mix it.  Finally the tea was ready to drink and Ben did the honors.

The mint is SO inexpensive here…like a dollar or two for a small laundry basket full.  I’m vague on the quantities of the ingredients used in the tea, although about a half hour was spent during the ride to Marrakech trying to figure out how much sugar was in the 5 cubes.  I think the mathematicians in the front of the Party Bus finally agreed on 135 grams total, which worked out to WAY less than a Coke per person.  The tea is super-sweet, like drinking liquid spearmint gum.

Our lesson in tea-making was like Moroccan dinner theater on the roof, with a group of curious tourists gathered around the tea tray, our Moroccan family thinking we must have a few screws loose, and Andi teaching them how to say “cheers!” and clink their tea glasses together.  Good stuff.

Ben’s brother Najib is in the middle here…

Cheers!

After we almost went to the mosque, we headed to Ain Diab – a beach area lined with restaurants.  On the way Ben announced from the front of the bus that we were going to the area where the “rich bastards” go.  As Gia and Ben were discussing the use of the word, I heard Nic pipe up from the back of the bus – “We’re going to the area where the rich ambassadors go!”  Pretty soon all of the kids were talking about the rich ambassadors.  I don’t think we saw any, but I’m sure they were there. 

After doing a little postcard shopping we stopped for lunch.  I sent Ben down ahead of our party of 15, to make sure they served food.  They did, and the menu looked fine – pizza, paninis, brochettes, etc.  Except that they couldn’t make pizza, or brochettes, or most of the other things on the menu.  And they were out of Diet Coke.  Oh well…we’re in Morocco.  Paninis for all!  Except Adlani who ate a crepe spread with Nutella, which he would not touch at home.  Progress!

After lunch, Dani (our driver) took us to see a few other Casablanca landmarks…the king’s palace (with historical narration by Ben), an area of shops that we were too tired to shop at, and Place Mohammed V.  Ben and I have visited this small park before.  It has a fountain in the middle that is always covered with hundreds (thousands?) of pigeons. 

As we strolled around the park doing some people watching, I noticed small areas cordoned off: 

I finally realized that each small area was controlled by a photographer, who would call a bunch of pigeons into his area by scattering corn, and then take your photo for a fee.  The funny thing about Morocco is that when someone has an idea, everyone jumps on the bandwagon.  How many pigeon photographers does one park really need?  Someday I’m going to bring some fresh new products to Morocco – I already have lemonade, chocolate chip cookies, and seedless watermelon on my list.

In the park we had our first diapered monkey sighting, some water seller and horse photo ops, and something I have not seen before – colored chicks for sale for 10 dirhams each (less than a dollar).  Very strange and probably cruel to the chicks, but the kids were fascinated and promptly broke rule number 42 AGAIN (don’t touch the animals).  Until one chick made a leap for freedom and apparently broke his leg – off.  So sad.

We’re off to Marrakech tomorrow!